Impending War with Iran?

[Air Force Cane]

Clearly you are simply going to refuse to admit you were wrong no matter how many articles I post exemplifying the point that the French certainly had the capability, yet not the will to defeat the Germans in 1936.

You are also jumping around in your arguments, as I stated I was discussing 1936 while you are now relying on quotes about May 1940.

"Adolf Hitler knew that both France and Britain were militarily stronger than Germany,. However, he became convinced that they were unwilling to go to war. He therefore decided to break another aspect of the Treaty of Versailles by sending German troops into the Rhineland. The German generals were very much against the plan, claiming that the French Army would win a victory in the military conflict that was bound to follow this action. Hitler ignored their advice and on 1st March, 1936, three German battalions marched into the Rhineland. The French government was horrified to find German troops on their border but were unwilling to take action without the support of the British. The British government argued against going to war over the issue and justified its position by claiming that "Germany was only marching into its own back yard."

How many articles should I post before you can man up and say you simply misstated a thesis?

[Air Force Cane]

Tony Judt, a world renowned military historian states:

"The French could certainly have defeated Germany easily in 1936. But they would not have had to go to the trouble. If France had made clear that it would forcefully oppose Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland in March 1936, the Nazi leader would undoubtedly have withdrawn his outnumbered troops—and he would have lost face, not least with his own skeptical officers. Who knows what might then have happened? But France did not oppose Hitler in 1936 (this is one reason why the Belgians, despairing of their erstwhile ally, declared themselves "neutral" thenceforth, with the absurd outcome noted by Mr. Oppenheim). Indeed, characteristically, France was between governments at the time and on the verge of a huge general strike. The men running French military and political affairs in March 1936 were in many cases those who would be influential in May 1940, not least General Gamelin himself. Their paralysis in 1936 derives from the same sources as their incompetence in 1940, and it is to these, rather than to the accidents of military misadventure in the Ardennes woods, that we must look if we seek to explain the Nazi victory."

My original post was that like the French could have done in 1936, we could much more easily end an Iranian threat NOW rather than wait two years until they have a nuclear bomb. I think these statements have now been proven correct throughout this discussion.

[Predicto]

SMSmith, you are conveniently ignoring the numbers in 1936. France may have had an army with mostly old equipment, etc., at that time, but Germany had almost nothing (in 1936). That was soon to change, but at the time they marched into the Rhineland, it was a big fat bluff by Hitler, who still had only a tiny shell of an army. By 1940, everything was different in Germany, and France was exactly the same as it had been. But not in 1936.

PS - I've read Hart, Gilbert, Shirer, Manchester, Churchill and others.

[Air Force Cane]

bingo at Predicto :applause:

I think pretty much every historian concedes this point- I am not sure why SMSmith does not.

I take it he is a young guy. anyway it was interesting debating the point...

[smsmith40]

AFC - I really wish you would source all these quotes.

Its late here so this is my last post tonight, I understand the point your are making, I just disagree with it. I think your judgement is superificial.

When Hitler re-occupied the Rhineland France (and to a lesser extent the UK) was left with limited strategic options.

1. Do nothing

2. General mobilisation for total war

Just kicking Hitler out of the Rhineland was NOT an option that was available to Daladier, thats not just my opinion, its the opinion that was given to Daladier by his chief of staff. We know now that there was considerable differences of opinion in the German High Command. Daladier did not. He didn't know that the German Army were going to turn around at the first sign of resistance.

If Daladier had mobilised for war, extended conscription, recalled the third of his army that was in North Africa etc. then the French may have won, eventually, there is of course significant doubt that he would have been joined by the UK, he certainly would have had no support from the US in those circumstances. There is significant divergence of opinion that France would have won out. Remember the French were at WAR for six months after September 1939 without effectively mobilising against Germany. Gamelin's own advice at he time was that it was no sure thing. France's and Europe's strategic error belonged to Clemenceau at Versailles when (against Wilson's advice) he imposed a punitive settlement on Germany that was unsustainable in the long term. France's military error was to take up an entirely defensive posture that left it unable to react flexibly to unanticipated strategic situations. France made the classical mistake of equipping to fight the last war.

My point is and stands, that we are not in a 1936 moment, now and for the forseeable future, the US will be pre-eminent, The US Air Force can reduce the Iranian nuclear program to rubble at about 12 hours notice I would imagine with absolutely no effort. France were faced with living with the re-occupation or total war.

Predicto - for information, total French strength in 1936 640,000 men of which 200,000 were in N Africa, total German strength (probably around 450,000) as estimated by Lidell Hart.

p.s Unless one of us is lying on our profile then we are the same age.

p.p.s I've not read Judt extensively, something I will try to remedy. My impression has always been that he is coming from a kind of dogmatic position reagrding interwar France. He's much stronger in his postwar analysis.

[Ancalagon the Black]

"If oil prices go up, oil companies profit. Bush loves Big Oil."

nice try.

of course there is that little thing about if oil prices go up, the ECONOMY of 300 million Americans goes DOWN.

and there is that little thing called ELECTIONS where those 300 million get to do something called VOTING.

OK, admittedly I was being a bit sarcastic. I think most people here recognize that I've never seriously argued that we went to war for oil. However, I do think that the "we can't have gone to war for oil because oil prices have gone up" argument is unsound. If we went to war to secure our supply of oil, that doesn't necessarily mean that oil prices would go down. Instability and unpredictability causes prices to rise. High oil prices would be a small short-term price to pay for a secure supply of oil, though; if we were cut off from Middle Eastern oil, we'd be paying a lot more for oil.

I don't think we "went to war for oil," but I do think that the Middle East is strategically important because of oil. Does that make sense?

Going to war to get the OIL is a war for oil.

Going to war to cause OIL prices to go up is a war for oil.

Must be nice to be able to say ANYTHING you wish even if its an outright lie.

Ouch. That is particularly cutting coming from you, Thiebear. I would hope that you are aware I'm not in the habit of just writing lies for fun.

:applause: It's amazing the conspiracy theories that get passed off as fact on this board.

Again, more sarcastic than anything.

[Predicto]

I would posit that France had an intermediate option in March of 1936, and I question those relative troop figures that you quote. (however, I am too lazy/busy to research further.)

The fact that Gamelin did not think there was anything that could be done outside of total mobilization says more about Gamelin than it does about the actual situation. And the idea that France should look to Britain for leadership was particularly silly, because essentially all of Britain's military strength was in its navy or scattered around the Empire. This appears to be more of an excuse for inaction than anything else. I continue to believe that France was failed by its military leadership in 1936.

I do not, however, think there is a perfect correlation between that situation and the one in Iran. Like it or not, we have already invaded two Muslim countries in the the middle east in the past few years. That whole part of the world is watching us, questioning our motives and deciding which side is the bad guys, and unfortunatly, they are not provided with very good information with which to make that choice. Bombing the crap out of half of Iran would have major repurcussions in the region.

From a purely military tactical point of view, it makes perfect sense of course - bomb them early while they are still vulnerable. But the purely tactical view is not always correct. Heck, from a purely tactical view, it made sense for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor, and we all know how that turned out.

The Iran situation is just hard, and I do not know what the right thing to do really is. Anyone who claims they know the perfect answer is just blowing smoke.

[smsmith40]

See what I did, I said I wouldn't post again tonight and yet here I am.

Predicto - THe German troop numbers are from a contemporary source and therefore may have been revised by documentary sources not available to Lidell Hart at the time. However, they are likely to be close to the numbers that the French were using at the time. I would agree that the French miltary leadership between the wars was poor to incompetent. What I have a problem with is simplistic view that the Western Powers could have stopped Hitler in 1936 but they didn't have the guts. I think its a lot more complicated than that.

I would agree that the events of the pasat only give an imperfect lesson on how to handle todays issues (as the French General Staff learned in May 1940 when Guderian's Panzers were waltzing past the north end of the Maginot line).